3D Printing is making rapid progress today in the field of medicine, science, and technology. In the next 10-15 years, we might be in a situation where we can see the use of 3D printers just like we are using our smartphones today. Now comes the question how 3D printing can be helpful in our day to day activities?

Just imagine that you are having a busy day and it’s your wedding anniversary or your better half’s bday, and you are unable to get them a present. You don’t want to disappoint them by not getting a gift, now here comes the solution for you. You can use 3D printers to print gifts like ornaments, dolls, memorabilia, etc. Or even print foods in short time and gift your loved ones.

3D printing requires a computer and a 3D printer. You have an open source software like TinkerCAD, https://www.tinkercad.com/ through which you can design the product and upload your STL file in our cloud-based service, MakePrintable to correct your STL files for any defects, download it and then feed it to the 3D printer to get a quality print. We shall now go into details into the topic where we will see different materials available for printing at home, objects we can print and the advantages of using a 3D printer in a home.

Materials

There are a number of good materials which are available at low cost and can be printed easily. Plastics like Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) and Polylactic acid (PLA) are most commonly used materials in 3D printing because of their properties. Other material like wood can also be used for 3D Printing. These materials are used in Fused Deposition modeling process (FDM). FDM is simple, easy operation and maintenance and low in cost. (To find out more about 3D printable material read our post about 3D printing materials.)

Products

The best advantage of a 3D printer is that it can print complex shapes easily. Products like toys, decorative items, plastic jewelry, mobile phone cases, art pieces, tools such as a wrench, bottle openers, etc. They can be printed with good precision and accuracy.

Now you can change the color of your phone itself with 3D printing, watch how it’s done here

Up till now, we are only using plastics for printing at homes, but in the future, we might be able to print metals and ceramics which are considered difficult to print.

Advantages of using 3D Printer at home

3D printers can be used in emergency situations at home, especially when you are in need of specific tools and accessory. They can also be used in economic rise of people by creating awareness of 3D printing and how they can use it as a business option.

You can use 3D printers to teach children through STEM,(Science Technology Engineering Mathematics), STEM helps in promoting creativity skills at grass root levels, it also helps the students to understand the concept and visualize what they study practically.

Farmers can reduce the maintenance cost on their agricultural equipment by printing spares of these machines.

You can also open a 3D Printed Food restaurant where you can provide 3D printed foods to your customers. This is becoming a trend nowadays and today it’s only limited to few food items like cakes and ice creams, you can innovate and expand to different food items.

3D printed Chocolate Cake

Further, you can also print door handles, plumbing fittings thereby not opting to hire a carpenter or a plumber for this case and save cost!